


Fire Before Night

by Burning_Nightingale



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Prophetic Dreams, Supernatural Elements, Survivor Guilt, Unsettling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-15 05:10:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2216940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Nightingale/pseuds/Burning_Nightingale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natalia and Alfred are together, against all odds and perhaps against common sense. Both are looking for something; both believe they'll find it in the same man. They try to find him; they try to survive.</p><p>They both know they won't be the same on the other side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire Before Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VampirePaladin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampirePaladin/gifts).



> This is a hilariously late pinch-hit. So sorry for my tardiness! I am a bad pinch-hitter :( 
> 
> This is based on and uses elements from the book/game Metro 2033, but no understanding of that is needed for this (hopefully). 
> 
> Hope you enjoy the story, recip!

The rhythmic _ding ding ding_ of water dripping onto something metallic and hollow echoed around the still tunnel air.

Natalia, crouched a few paces in front of him, held up a hand. He stopped and ducked down, then silently covered the few steps between them and leaned in.

“There’s something up ahead,” she breathed.

“Hostile?” he whispered.

She considered for a few moments. “Hard to tell.”

They crouched, stock still, barely breathing, listening. The water droplets were the only sound, and they suddenly seemed very loud.

“You’re sure?” Alfred breathed to her after a few moments. It would have been easy to tell what surrounded them, if they had been on American soil; there he just _felt_ things, like vibrations in the earth, like unexplainable unconscious knowledge in the back of his mind. If they had been in Belarus he would never have questioned her, but ability to use such perception on another’s territory generally relied on your – usually familial – relationship to them, and he never quite felt comfortable trusting it completely. Especially in situations of potential life or death.

(Well, _injury_ or death, since neither of them could actually die, but that thought was more discomforting than ever in their current situation).

She gave him a cold look over her shoulder. “Yes. I am sure.”

Alfred set his mouth in a thin line and unslung his rifle from his shoulder. “Well, let’s not wait to get sprung upon.” Without waiting for her answer he stood and began creeping forward, gun in hand, finger on trigger.

There was nothing visible in the tunnel beyond. A section of the tunnel roof had collapsed, letting in weak sunlight and the dangerous toxicity of the outside air, meaning it was highly unlikely they were about to encounter a group of humans.

A few more paces forward and he heard it; a scuffling, snuffling noise, like a dog rooting through trash. He tensed his finger on the trigger. Behind him, he could sense rather than hear Natalia creeping forward.

Something was moving in the darkness, beyond where the tunnel roof had fallen in. Alfred placed his feet carefully, soundless as a big cat stalking prey, and tried to peer through the light and into the shadows beyond.

What he saw was certainly the _size_ of a dog – as big as a labrador, maybe. But it wasn’t a dog; it was a _rat_.

Without hesitating, Alfred brought up his gun and fired two shots off. The rat squealed once and fell silent, slumping to the ground.

Natalia hissed in annoyance behind him. “Anything else for miles around will have heard that,” she snapped.

Alfred moved his gun back to a comfortable position on his shoulder. “Did you see that guy three stations ago? His face all savaged? That was a rat. I’m not taking my chances.”

“There are worse things than rats in these tunnels,” Natalia said darkly.

Alfred shrugged, adjusting his thick coat. “And we can handle them. Let’s get moving.” He walked onward.

Sparing one glance for the dead rat, Natalia followed him.

/

They were silent around their campfire that night.

It was almost impossible for Alfred to tell day from night in the darkness of the tunnels, but Natalia said she could still just about feel it. They didn’t routinely stop at night; it was much more practical to rest whenever they could find a safe place. They’d stumbled upon this abandoned station and decided to call it a day and roast up some of the wild dog Alfred had shot, since they’d decided it hadn’t looked too mangy.

(Not that either of them would actually die from eating irradiated mutant dog, but it was always nicer not to be ill).

“Do you really think this is safe?” Natalia asked once they’d polished off the meat. “Mutants and creatures will not avoid it simply because it is a station. It has been in the dark too long.”

“The campfire will scare them away,” Alfred muttered.

“Or bring them near,” Natalia pointed out.

“If you want to take watches that’s fine by me,” Alfred said a little snappishly.

Natalia was silent for a long time, and Alfred went back to watching the fire. He had almost given up on the chance of her speaking again that night, but then she said, “What is it you think about, when you stare into the flames?”

So _not_ the question he wanted to be answering. “The same thing I think about when I wake up from my nightmares,” he said darkly.

She nodded; despite his irritation at the question, he knew she understood. “Those who are lost,” she whispered, and said nothing more.

Lost; not dead, just lost. It was a pretty way of putting it. Nations didn’t die – they couldn’t. They just disappeared. Being a nation was about being attached to the land, and the people in it. They had thought the only way you could cease to exist was if your people stopped identifying as your nationality, if your area of land was renamed or the previous name forgotten, but it turned out turning everything and everyone into radioactive ash was also a pretty effective way of bringing about the same result.

Some nations had perished instantly, while others had hung on, slowly ailing and becoming sicker as their countries died around them. Memories flooded in, things Alfred tried to banish by squeezing his eyes shut.

_The burnt out hulk of Big Ben dominating the skyline. Wolves howling outside the barred gates of Oxford Circus tube station. Dark shapes breaking the surface of the roiling, diseased Thames. A creature with huge wings like a bat straight out of a nightmare, clinging to one of the pale spires atop Tower Bridge._

_The grey-eyed ghost whose gaze had once been vibrant emerald, fading away as he haunted Parliament’s silent, dust-choked halls._

_The day Alfred had woken and found himself alone._

He supposed it was only because the USA was so big that he survived – that somewhere, somehow, there were pockets of life and survivors. He wasn’t sure – he hoped, hoped so badly it made him ache inside – that Matthew might have had the same stroke of luck, but he didn’t know.

Natalia was an odd case. He knew she was sick – her skin had a grey quality that even the dimness of the tunnels couldn’t hide, and her movements sometimes became jerky, her body undoubtedly laced with pain – but she kept going. When he’d asked her how, she just smiled without humour and replied, “Pure Belarussian bloody-mindedness.”

“I will take the first watch,” she announced now. “No point in being incautious.”

He nodded without comment and lay down to sleep.

/

_He walked into the room. The figure he had been searching out was waiting for him, staring out the high window; he turned, surprised by Alfred’s entrance, though Alfred already knew he’d find him here._

_He’d found him here a hundred times in dreams just like this one._

_“You’re alive?” the figure asked, incredulous and wondering, just like always._

_Alfred smiled to see the happiness in his eyes, such a rare emotion now. “Hey, Arthur,” he drawled, just like he had so irreverently before, when this had been reality instead of a dream. “Thought I’d come check on ya.”_

_Arthur’s smile was there, but it was pained. They both knew that everything had gone badly, badly wrong, but Alfred had often been flippant in face of disaster._

_There was no talk of blame; both of them had the same blood on their hands, the same weight of guilt on their shoulders. They’d egged each other on, threat after threat and then nuke after nuke, dragging each other down into the hell they’d been too blind to see right until they hit the bottom, and bringing the whole world with them._

_“Parliament survived better than the White House,” Alfred commented, brushing rock dust off the wall._

_Arthur’s smile was almost a smirk. “A pity; I should have liked to finish what I started.”_

_Alfred chuckled and shook his head. “Got any food?” he asked._

_Arthur’s smile dropped. “Nothing,” he whispered, “There’s no one here to grow it. No one but me.”_

_Alfred opened his mouth for his next words, the next line in their little play, but nothing came out. The scene was fading at the edges, being eaten up like fire consuming an old Polaroid._

_“Don’t go,” he begged, holding his hand out._

_The dream Arthur looked sad. “I’m already gone,” he whispered. “You remember that day, don’t you?”_

_The memories appeared, stark and vivid. The ratty little bed he’d scraped up with some blankets and old, mouldy curtains. Waking up to find the almost identical one across the room empty. Getting up, calling out for its occupant. Wandering the dusty halls in search of him. Waiting days, the slow realization creeping up behind like a crushing darkness; Arthur was gone, and he was alone. All alone._

He woke from the dream in a cold sweat, and murmured assent when Natalia asked if he’d like to take over on watch.

/

Down here in the old Metro tunnels, the stations were little towns and cities, little hubs of light and civilization in the darkness. The humans seemed to sense something was different about them; they shied back whenever they approached the outposts that protected the stations from mutant attacks, allowing them to pass the checkpoints unchallenged. Before they had managed to blend, keep people in the dark about their true identity, but now things were different.

(He wondered often if going for days without food and sleep, surviving in toxic wastes, using their gifts as nations, being so _unlike_ humans, was eroding their grip on humanity. Then he remembered the fire singing in his veins as he pressed those buttons, launched those bombs, and decided he’d lost _humanity_ a long time ago).

Everywhere they came across people they showed the same photo and asked if they knew the man. No one did, and no one had seen him, but they kept trying. Even when Alfred felt at his most depressed, Natalia kept believing.

“Moscow was the home of his heart,” she would say, staring at the picture. “He is still here. I can feel it, blood calling to blood.”

He knew why she was seeking him – he was her brother, after all. She’d never asked why he came with her, where he appeared from, what he’d been doing before; in all honesty, she didn’t even seem interested. He was glad of it; his reasons for coming were…hard to articulate.

There was an interesting person at this station, people told them; a man who routinely went on forays to the outside, part of a group who did so, seeking anything valuable in the world above. There was awe and not a little fear in people’s voices as they spoke of him. Naturally, Natalia and Alfred decided to seek him out.

Nik was what he introduced himself as. He eyed them with a calculating gaze, and said slowly, “You don’t seem like the folks from round here.”

“We’ve come a long way,” Natalia answered cryptically.

“Indeed. And not my business to know, of course.” He smiled. “What can I help you with?”

Alfred had many questions, but Natalia jumped in before him, holding their battered picture out. “Do you know this man? Have you ever seen him?”

Nik studied the picture carefully for a minute, then sighed and shook his head. “I am sorry, but for all my travels, I do not remember this man’s face. What is his name?”

“Ivan,” Natalia said quietly, “Ivan Braginsky.”

Nik looked sad. “No, doesn’t ring any bells. I hope you find him, though.”

“Thank you,” Natalia murmured.

“So what’s going on up top?” Alfred asked amiably, moving the conversation past the awkwardness.

Nik sighed. “Lost another man to the damn Kremlin yesterday. He was a good man, our Mat.”

“The Kremlin?” Alfred questioned.

Nik gave him an odd look. “Have you been living in one of the outlying stations or something? Everyone’s heard the stories.”

Natalia and Alfred looked at each other. “Not us,” she said.

“There’s something…well,” Nik hesitated. “All we know is, whenever someone looks at it, it’s like they lose their mind. They just start running towards it, regardless of any danger. Some we manage to pull back, they say there are huge red stars on it…personally, I don’t have the balls to try looking.” Nik looked around, then leaned in and lowered his voice. “There are also other rumours, about a secondary network of tunnels, some leading right under the building. I don’t know what kind of horrors you’d find if you went looking, though. I don’t want to _imagine_ it.”

Natalia was frowning slightly; she was obviously deep in thought. “Sounds terrifying,” Alfred said, making up for her lack of answer. He asked some more questions about the surface, what they found and the creatures they faced, while she stayed silent.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said later, in a low voice so no one would hear them through the thin canvas of the tent they’d rented for the night. “It’s way too dangerous, even for us. We have no idea what we’d be walking into, let alone where to start looking for the tunnels.”

“We don’t have to look for the tunnels. We can walk in the front gate,” Natalia said. She was cleaning one of her knives, thoroughly and systematically.

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t like the sound of those stars,” Alfred said. “And I’d bet there’s any number of nasty mutants hanging about the entrance.”

“And how do you know the tunnels won’t be crawling with mutants too?” Natalia challenged.

“I don’t, which is why this idea is crazy and we’re not doing it.”

Natalia put her hands, knife and all, in her lap and fixed Alfred with a piercing gaze. “Why did you follow me to Russia, Alfred?” she asked.

He looked away. “You never-”

“I never asked before. I am asking now.”

There was a long silence. “It was me and Ivan fighting each other,” Alfred said after a long moment. “Well, me and others fighting Ivan and others but…we were fighting. And we devastated each other, caused this,” he motioned around. “I just thought…” He gave a heavy sigh. “I just thought if I survived, he might have done. Russia’s a big country, after all. And I thought maybe, if we could settle our differences…It wouldn’t make things right again, but it might…give some hope. Something.”

Natalia gazed at him, her stare appraising. “And you are not dedicated to this goal?”

Alfred’s head shot up. “Of course I am! It’s the only thing…” He paused, looked away, and then looked back, his eyes open and honest. “It’s the only thing I have left.”

Natalia nodded once, one quick jab of her head, sharp like the movement of a bird. “So you must see it through, no? You must come to the Kremlin with me. I am his sister, and I can feel this earth – less than him, but still I feel it. I feel a pull to that place, like what I am searching for is there. So we must go, you and I.”

A heavy weight seemed to settle on Alfred’s shoulders. A writer or poet might have called it destiny; Alfred just thought of it as inevitability. “Get some rest, then,” he said gruffly, shifting to lie down on his thin sleeping bag. “We’ll have a lot of work to do, to find those tunnels.”

He almost missed Natalia’s smile, it was so quick; like a flash of sheet lightning, gone in a moment. “We will work hard,” she murmured, “And we will succeed.”

He grunted in what passed for agreement, then turned over.

_That night he dreamed again, but it was different. The shape of the Kremlin was familiar on the horizon, but the Moscow he walked through was the grand, imposing, beautiful city of memory, not the scorched wreck of reality._

_Ivan was there, waiting at the end of the street. He felt strangely happy to see him, like he hadn’t for over a hundred years. He walked slowly towards him, feeling buoyant and light._

_“You have the first step,” Ivan said, his thick accent both comfortably and unsettlingly familiar. “You might just make it after all.”_

_Alfred stopped; his eyes felt drawn upward. The Kremlin’s roof was right in his eyeline. A huge, glowing, red star topped the tower now, and it seemed to consume his vision, to draw him in._

_“You’re close,” Ivan said, his voice seeming further away now. “You need to keep your eyes on the task.”_

Eyes on the task _, Alfred thought, but his eyes were on the Kremlin, on the glowing, beautiful star, so bright its radiance seemed to swallow the light of the sun itself._

The shape seemed burnt into his eyes, even when he woke. He lay in the near-darkness, listening to the muffled sounds of humanity all around, and knew one thing with aching certainty.

Whatever was in that tower was not human, and it had Ivan in its clutches. They had to get him back.

 _Well_ , he thought to himself, glancing over at Natalia’s back, at her long platinum hair. _Good thing we aren’t human either, isn’t it?_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Title was taken from the painting of an artist who was either Slovenian or Croatian and whose name I sadly can't remember. 
> 
> (P.S. If you haven't read Metro 2033, please do. It is amazing. Everyone should love it like me and feel the pain that it's sequel hasn't been translated from Russian yet :( )


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